


Stitch & Bitch

by Eatgreass



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Knitting, Oscar Wilde Is Fine (Rusty Quill Gaming), hamids canonical sewing skills, harrison campbell - Freeform, just a lot of dialogue man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29769930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eatgreass/pseuds/Eatgreass
Summary: Hamid has an idea for how to connect with Wilde. Wilde does not know how to knit.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	Stitch & Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my discord friends who came up with this idea. Yall are geniuses.

“Hello, Oscar,” said Hamid. “Can you get the door, please?”

That was odd. Hamid usually knocked instead, and he  _ never  _ asked Wilde to open the door for him. Cautiously, Wilde stood up. What he saw on the other side of the door was Hamid teetering with an unstable pile of yarn in his arms. 

“Do you know how to knit?” asked Hamid. 

Wilde blinked. 

“Oscar?”

“No,” said Wilde. “Is that why you have so much yarn?”

“I find that knitting helps you think,” said Hamid. “Having something to do with your hands, and all that. So I thought we could do a little knitting circle.”

Wilde raised an eyebrow. 

“But not if you don’t want to!” 

“I don’t know how to knit,” said Wilde. 

‘It’s alright! I can teach you.” Getting a confused look as a response, Hamid pressed on. “Here are your needles.”

“When I use other people’s needles, I prefer them larger.”

“Well, these  _ are  _ halfling si- oh.”

The scar running across Wilde’s face marred his smirk, and it faded quickly. “Let’s get started, then.”

“What would you like to make?” asked Hamid. 

Wilde thought. “A hat,” he said, reaching for the neon green yarn. 

Hamid wrinkled his nose. “In that color?”

Wilde’s lopsided smile simply got larger. “It’s for Zolf,” he said. 

“Oh,” said Hamid, flushing slightly. Then, more hesitantly: “Are you and Zolf…”

“No,” said Wilde, and paused. “But he refused to buy a hat before the journey, and I’m going to make him regret it.”

Hamid simply nodded, and began to demonstrate how to cast on. It took Wilde a few tries, and there was visible relief on his face once he finished the first part. That was, until Hamid announced that Wilde also had to learn how to do a knit stitch. 

Wilde slumped back in his chair with a dramatic sigh. “Will it  _ ever  _ end?”

“Eventually, Oscar,” said Hamid. “Once you finish the hat.”

With that, Hamid pulled out his own unfinished project, a colorful tapestry of yarn, and the two of them lapsed into a comfortable silence. It was broken only by Wilde’s soft cursing when he missed a stitch, and the soft clack of needles. Occasionally, Hamid would glance up, open his mouth, and then close it again, as if he had something to say but was unsure of how to say it. 

“Did you know Cel before we got back from Rome?” Hamid finally asked. 

Wilde stopped knitting and thought. “In a way,” he said. 

“What do you mean ‘in a way,’ Oscar?”

“I’ve known them for much longer than they’ve known me,” said Wilde. Hamid looked confused, and Wilde resigned himself to the fact that he would have to elaborate on this statement. “Zolf once described it as ‘stalking,’” Wilde said. 

“Like what you did when you broke into my apartment?”

Wilde visibly winced. “I hope you have a higher option of me than you did in London, Hamid.”

“You’ve changed a lot, Oscar,” said Hamid. “That’s why I think that-”

Wilde’s tone became colder. “Drop it.” 

Hamid dropped the scarf he was making onto the floor of Wilde’s cabin. 

“Not like that!” Then: “Ow!” as he stood up sharply, knocking his head on the low ceiling of his cabin. 

“Honesty, it’s not hard to notice that this ship is built for gnomes,” said Wilde, letting his knitting project fall to the floor. 

“Are you hurt?” asked Hamid. 

“It’s alright,” said Wilde. “Bloody Earhart and her miniature sized ship.”

“You’re just too tall, Oscar,” said Hamid, trying to stifle a laugh. 

Wilde sighed, rubbing his head. “Fine, fine. It’s ruining my hair, brushing up against every ceiling in this whole place.”

“Tough,” said Hamid unapologetically. 

Wilde paused. 

“Use that hat to protect your head,” said Hamid, pointing to the awful mess of yarn Wilde had on his lap. 

“I can’t do  _ that _ !” said Wilde, looking  _ utterly  _ scandalized at the very suggestion.

“Why not?” asked Hamid. 

Wilde sat down, still rubbing at where he had hit his head on the ceiling. “Zolf will never let me hear the end of it.”

Hamid still looked confused that Wilde actually  _ cared  _ what people thought of him. “And?”

Wilde dramatically flopped backwards onto his bed, pointing one knitting needle at Hamid. “Why, how dost thou, man? What is the matter with thee?” he said. 

Hamid smirked. “No black in my mind, though yellow in my legs. It did come to his hands-”

Wilde sat up, a genuine smile on his face. “-And commands shall be executed: I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.”

“Wilt thou go to bed with me?” Hamid paused, but spoke again as soon as Wilde opened his mouth. “Gods, it’s nice to be around someone who actually  _ reads.”  _

Wilde raised one eyebrow. “Zolf reads,” he said. 

“Yes, but-” Hamid quickly stopped as he saw Wilde waiting in stony silence. “Nothing,” he finished. 

But the twinkle in Wilde’s eye wasn’t gone. “Do you have something to say, Hamid?” he asked. 

“No,” said Hamid, too quickly to really be believable.

“Don’t lie.”

That was all it took for Hamid to spill his thoughts, his voices getting shriller with every word. “Alright, alright! I just don’t think Campbell is all that  _ good  _ of a writer, it’s just pulpy romance anyway, it’ll never withstand the test of time, and-”

Wilde interrupted. “Have you ever read a Harrison Campbell novel?” 

“Well,  _ no,  _ but-”

The two were adamantly talking over each other. “Maybe-” said Wilde, but Hamid was too deep in his own rant to listen. 

“-I just don’t see how you can enjoy them, Oscar! You of all people seem to be  _ cultured,  _ you know.” Hamid took a breath, and Wilde used that as an opportunity to begin his own sentence.

“They’re not horrible, you know. The themes are a little bit-”

“Bad,” filled in Hamid.

“ _ Lackluster,  _ but they’re genuinely well written, which is more than I can say for half of all the posh nitwits I’m sure  _ you  _ read.” Wilde looked at Hamid, daring him to object. 

Wilde rummaged in his desk for a second, then pressed a book into Hamid’s hands. “I think you’d enjoy this one.”

“Oscar?”

“Yes?” replied Wilde, the very picture of innocence. 

“Why do you have a signed copy of  _ When Passions Collide?” _

Wilde grabbed the book back from Hamid, flipping to the inside cover to confirm that it was truly a signed copy. He frowned and put it back on his desk, grabbing a different copy of the same book. “Sorry, this one,” he said, putting in it Hamid’s hands. 

Hamid frowned. “Why do you have  _ two  _ copies of  _ When Passions Collide?” _

Wilde pointed to the signed copy on his desk. “That one’s Zolfs.”

Hamid just stared, and the mischievous smile that Hamid knew so well from his first acquaintance with Wilde reappeared. “If you’d like, you can join our book club,” Wilde said. 

“I think I’ll pass,” Hamid responded, his voice even more shrill than it had been previously. 

“Are you sure?” asked Wilde. “Zolf, Azu, and I have a  _ wonderful  _ time each week.”

“I’m sure.”

Wilde rested his chin in his hands. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re still stuck reading the books that were given to you in university.”

Hamid jumped up, which considering his height, did absolutely nothing. “No!”

“Charles Dickens,” said Wilde. 

“He’s written-”

“Don Quixote.”

“Okay, but-” Hamid spluttered. 

“Homer.” Wilde was fully grinning now, his face pulling at the scar tissue. Hamid sighed. 

“You know,” said Wilde, “You could stand to loosen up a bit, Hamid. After all, you’re saving the world now, not writing meaningless essays.”

Hamid scoffed slightly. “Like you wouldn’t give this up in an instant to go back to writing essays.” 

Wilde leaned in towards Hamid. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asked.

“Sure?”

“I  _ hate  _ the paperwork.” said Wilde. 

That caught Hamid off guard. “What? But you-”

“‘Enjoys writing,” said Wilde, “Doesn’t mean ‘enjoys decoding hundreds of asinine forms from whatever factory your team decides to break into next’, Hamid.” 

Hamid visibly wilted. “Sorry. But was any of it at least useful?”

“No.” 

“ _ Really?” _

It might have been,” said Wilde. “I don’t know. When I got back to my office after the temple of Artemis, all of the papers were missing, save for the bloodied ones on my desk.”

Hamid stopped knitting at that point, and the absence of the methodical needle clacks was more jarring than Wilde imagined it would have been. “I feel like I’ve missed a lot, Oscar,” he said. 

Wilde chuckled softly, though not out of mirth. “That’s what happens when you’re trapped in time for a year and a half, Hamid.”

There was a long silence, and Hamid awkwardly picked back up his needles to complete his project.

“How does the hat look?” Hamid asked presently, having borne the silence for far too long. 

Wilde held up the ugliest hat that Hamid had  _ ever  _ seen.

“It’s… lovely,” said Hamid, trying and failing to hide his grimace.

Wilde beamed. “It’s perfect!”

Hamid shoved his arm through a hole in the very front of the hat. “I don’t think a hat is supposed to have a hole there, Oscar.”

Wilde frowned at the hat, poking it with the knitting needle. “It adds character,” he said. “Besides, Cel can fit quite nicely if they turn into a rat.”

Hamid held up a magnificent scarf, rainbowed colors fading into each other. It was quite possibly the most colorful- and the most beautiful- item of clothing that Wilde had seen since he had joined the harlequins. “Do you like it?” Hamid asked. 

“It’s wonderful,” said Wilde, surprised by the sincerity in his own voice.

Hamid stood on his tiptoes and gently placed it over Wilde’s neck. “It’s yours,” Hamid said. 

“What?”

“You hardly get the chance to wear bright colors anymore, so I thought you might enjoy having something pretty again.”

Wilde softly fingered the scarf. “Thank you, Hamid,” he said. It was rare for him to be lost for words but in this instance, he was too enamored by the kindness in the gesture to think of anything else to say.

Hamid smiled widely, gathering his knitting supplies. “I’m glad you like it, Oscar! I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Wilde looked up. “What- Oh yes. And thank you for letting me borrow your knitting needles. This was enjoyable.”

Hamid backed away from where Wilde was holding out the knitting needles to him. “Oh no, keep them.”

“But-”

“Maybe you can actually learn how to knit,” said Hamid. “Goodbye Oscar!” he said, waving as he left the room. 

As Wilde shut his door, he allowed himself to admire the beauty of what his friend had given him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thanks to the writing rangers discord for beta reading and helping me realize that a) knitting needles aren't stabby, and b) casting on and knit stitch are names for things. I have never once knitted something that even turned out to have a shape, but I admire those of you that can do things such as knit.


End file.
